Kingdom of Janjero

The Kingdom of Janjero (also known as Yamma) was a tiny kingdom located in what is now Ethiopia. It lay in the angle formed by the Omo and the Jimma Gibe Rivers; to the west lay the Kingdom of Jimma and to the south the Kingdom of Garo. Three mountains -- Mount Bor Ama, Mount Azulu and Mount Toba -- all distinguish the location of the former kingdom.

Although one of the Sidamo kingdoms, until its conquest in 1894 Janjero was "isolated, and had little to do with its neighbors, its rivers being very difficult to cross. Although first visited by Europeans in 1614, until the late 1950s this region remained poorly known to outsiders. As a result, its people were said to have preserved a number of "customs so barbarious and strange that there cannot be any more so." [G.W.B. Huntingford, "The Galla of Ethiopia; the Kingdoms of Kafa and Janjero" (London: International African Institute, 1955), p. 137]

Some of these alleged customs are as follows: [Based on Huntingford, "Galla of Ethiopia", pp. 137-144.]
* The king had the right to take persons of either sex from their homes to either be sold into slavery, or to work for him.
* Maize had been grown in Janjero prior to the late 19th century, but a king forbade its further cultivation because "the cobs were better covered than he, and the 'beards' were like human hair."
* Human sacrifice was allegedly practiced until the Ethiopian conquest.
* If man survived after being wounded in war, his relatives killed him to prevent it being said that he died at the hands of the enemy.
* When a new king came to the throne, all victims of leprosy and ringworm were sought out and taken to a "hospital" on the other side of the Jimma Gibe River, where they were beheaded.

History

Janjero is first mentioned in a victory song of Yeshaq I for paying tribute in horses. The first kings of Janjero belonged to the Halmam Gama dynasty, which was ejected by the Mwa clan, who claimed to have come from the north.

In 1844, warriors of the Kingdom of Jimma defeated the army of Janjero, and the king of Janjero was taken prisoner. He regained his freedom in 1847, and resumed his struggle against his more powerful neighbor. [Mordechai Abir, "The era of the princes: the challenge of Islam and the re-unification of the Christian empire, 1769-1855" (London: Longmans, 1968), pp. 91f]

Jimma conquered part of Janjero in the 1880s. The rest of the kingdom was annexed in the reign of Menelik II in 1894, and its last king, Abba Bagibo, fled to the Gurage country, but eventually made his submission to Emperor Menelik. His son Abba Chabsa became a Christian, and adopted the name Gabra Madhen, and served the Ethiopian who held the fief.

During the reorganization of the provinces in 1942, the former kingdom was absorbed to become part of the Kaffa Province. However, with the new constitution of 1995, the area Janjero once occupied became the Yem Special Woreda, which was added to the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region to form the enclave of the Region west of the Omo River.

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